TRI-POST!

« Should I? Should I attempt a triple post? How messy could it actually get? LET’S GO! »

So, my first round of exams just finished, which is why I couldn’t post right after introducing myself, also late. When the month is over I’ll be free!

I’m actually pretty interested in talking about the Portuguese school system, since I get the feeling, from media and from talking to foreigners, that, at least university-wise, it’s a bit different.

Before you get to university, there are 3 major stages:

Primary School. Usually starting when you’re 6, some people start when they are 5 years-old. It lasts 4 years: 1^st year to the 4^th. You have one teacher each year, but it can be the same for the four years.

“Basic Teaching” (Ensino Básico). From 5^th grade to 9^th.

There’s a subdivision here: 2^nd cycle (5^th and 6^th) and 3^rd cycle (7^th to 9^th). The main differences are the number of subjects and a lot of people change school when they’re going to 7^th grade. Generally, you now have a teacher for each subject.

Secondary School. From the 10^th to the 12^th year. In the last two years, there are important exams which limit your access to university.

Now, how does one get to university? The entrance is solely based upon Secondary School’s grades. You apply to 6 universities+degrees, by your order of preference, and then people are ordered by their grades until a university+degree is full. There are no other criteria, which accounts for a lot of people wanting, let’s say, Medicine because it’s the one people usually talk about (and it’s what is most familiar to me), and not getting in, no matter how bad they want it, how good they would be or other qualifications they may have. There are simple formulas that take into account the average grade from Secondary School and the exams you have taken. People can simply be left out by 0,1. So even though Medicine schools have been very full for a long time (consequently decreasing the quality of some classes), people keep saying there should be a greater number of spots so that the last grade getting in is lower. That’s why we now hear news about too many doctors and doctors leaving the country (still, if you’ve heard about Portugal recently, this happens with almost every job). Also, this system puts a lot of pressure in Secondary School to get high grades and people redo their exams after a year (or more) if they haven't got in where they wanted. The thing is Secondary School demands a lot of hours of dedication per day, so it wouldn’t exactly be easy to take into account anything else. If we leave school almost every day at six o’clock, for example in 11^th grade, with tests and a great load of homework/papers, there’s not really a chance to keep your grades high and do other things. Not to say that people don’t play sports nor learn new languages or others skills, they do, I did, but to explain that the system is set up in a way that doesn’t give much room to change university entrance criteria, even though some people may say it should take into account a lot of things (like we see in the movies, I suppose).

[I’d actually be very interested in hearing people from other countries commenting on this. I haven’t had time to read all your posts on school systems, so there might be some of you who have said something similar to this. I’m very interested in reading them, once I finish the second round of exams ^.^ .]

Moving on, my nerdfighter story.

When I think about Youtube, I always feel a bit sad that I didn’t realize *what* it was until very recently. It was simply a place where I’d go see some videos once in a while, I had no idea about the kind of communities and group of friends there were in there. It was a very different perspective and I don’t think I know anyone close who gets the vloggers/communities thing and how I feel about it - it sounds a bit strange to some people (which I totally get if I remember how I understood Youtube). Now it means a very different thing to me, even though I don’t post videos.

I discovered the Vlogbrothers during Christmas break at my 1^st year of university (This break usually equals freshmen closed in their houses studying for the first Anatomy oral examination. Little Christmas). I had been feeling really sad and demotivated for a couple of months, I didn’t know people at uni yet, I was struggling with Anatomy, but everything was a little (a lot...) exacerbated because I had broken up with my first boyfriend at the beginning of the year.

Then!!, I ran into Nerimon, the Vlogbrothers, Communitychannel, Michael Aranda , Charlie… (I had seen a few videos from Charlie before, but I didn’t understand at that time the concept of his channel very well), their group of friends, five awesome guys, five awesome girls. “Meeting” this sort of people, who were very proud in knowing stuff and doing different things, REALLY inspired me at that time. I felt happy just watching them, so obviously I watched hours and hours and hours of their vlogs. When I went back to uni, I started checking Youtube at the end of each day to cheer me up. I think that’s why I now have a totally different grasp on Youtube and the concept of vlogging and creating things to present online. Knowing there are such awesome people all over the world is really amazing and motivating and cheerful. It's weird to think that this was all hidden for me. And I’m getting lame.

Since this is getting long, instead of going all free-style on you for another 20 lines 8D, and because I am shamefully lacking imagination, can I ask you some of your main goals in life, like big dreams? It can be anything. (I actually really like knowing this sort of thing from people I think are interesting :D) And what do you think steps in the way of them.

Some of mine:

- be fluent speaking and writing in, at least, one other language

- live in other country for a while

- publish something I’ve written and get good feedback on it

- take a gap year volunteering abroad

I think, for me, mainly procrastination and people who don’t believe you can do something get in the way. I would say money too, but sometimes I see people manage to do awesome stuff in spite of that (Alex Day, I find really awesome) and I feel bad usually that as an excuse all the time… Sometimes I feel guilty that I have so much cool things I want to do and I just waste days drooling and being lazy. About people who don’t believe in the same things… I think it’s mostly a factor if there are close people that think what you want to do isn’t sensible, rational, smart or that forsee bad scenarios frequently, so you end up feeling demotivated. I know rising above that is smart, but I mean really close people, like family.

Very sorry for the long post if you've reached this far :D (and I realise now it seems a bit sad overall?)

DFTBA!!,

Helena